Segregated From Its History, How 'Ghetto' Lost Its Meaning : Code Switch : NPR Segregated From Its History, How 'Ghetto' Lost Its Meaning The pushcart market in the East Side Ghetto of New York's Jewish Quarter was a hive of activity in the early 1900s. Ewing Galloway/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Ewing Galloway/Getty Images The pushcart market in the East Side Ghetto of New York's Jewish Quarter was a hive of activity in the early 1900s. Ewing Galloway/Getty Images As you might have gathered from our blog's title, the Code Switch team is kind of obsessed with the ways we speak to each other. Each week in "Word Watch," we'll dig into language that tells us something about the way race is lived in America today. (Interested in contributing? Holler at this form .) The word "ghetto" is an etymological mystery. Is it from the Hebrew get, or bill of divorce? From the Venetian ghèto, or foundry? From the Yiddish gehektes, "enclosed"? From Latin Giudaicetum, for "Jewish"?

From the Italian borghetto, "little town"? From the Old French guect, "guard"? In his etymology column for the Oxford University Press, Anatoly Liberman took a look at each of these possibilities. He considered ever more improbable origins — Latin for "ribbon"? German for "street"? Latin for "to throw"? — before declaring the word a stubborn mystery. But whatever the root language, the word's original meaning was clear: "the quarter in a city, chiefly in Italy, to which the Jews were restricted," as the OED puts it. In the 16th and 17th centuries, cities like Venice, Frankfurt, Prague and Rome forcibly segregated their Jewish populations, often walling them off and submitting them to onerous restrictions. Article continues after sponsorship By the late 19th century, these ghettos had been steadily dismantled. But instead of vanishing from history, ghettos reappeared — with a purpose more ominous than segregation — under Nazi Germany. German forces established ghettos in over a thousand cities across Europe. They were isolated, strictly controlled and resource-deprived — but unlike the ghettos of history, they weren't meant to last.

Maxwell Street, a teeming marketplace of Chicago's ghetto, on July 22, 1939. AP Reviving the Jewish ghetto made genocide a much simpler project. As the Holocaust proceeded, ghettos were emptied by the trainload. The prisoners of the enormous Warsaw ghetto , which at one point held 400,000 Jews, famously fought their deportation to death camps. They were outnumbered and undersupplied, but some managed to die on their own terms; thousands of Jews were killed within the walls of the ghetto, rather than in the camps. Jews line up in front of a well in a ghetto at Lublin, Poland, Feb. 1, 1941. AP hide caption toggle caption AP Jews line up in front of a well in a ghetto at Lublin, Poland, Feb. 1, 1941. AP Jewish ghettos were finally abolished after the end of World War II. But the word lived on, redefined as a poor, urban black community.

From Anti-Semitism To Race And Poverty As early as 1908, "ghetto" was sometimes used metaphorically to describe slum areas that weren't mandated by law but that were limited to a single group of people because of other constraints. That year, Jack London wrote of "the working-class ghetto." Immigrant groups and American Jews were also identified as living in these unofficial "ghettos." Even as those areas were identified, they were already transforming. A 1928 study of American Jewish ghettos explained why such communities were being "invaded" by people of color: "the Negro, like the immigrant, is segregated in the city into a racial colony. Economic considerations, race prejudice and cultural differences combine to set him apart." "Race prejudice" included laws and lending practices, from redlining to restrictive covenants , explicitly design to separate white and nonwhite city dwellers. After World War II, "white flight" from inner cities further exacerbated racial segregation. By the '60s and '70s, so-called "negro ghettos" in cities like Chicago, New York and Detroit were central to the cultural conversation about poverty.

"Something must be done, and done soon, to build a strong and stable family structure among Negro ghetto dwellers," an Ebony editorial contended in 1966; countless academic articles argued about the causes of ghetto poverty. And in 1969, Elvis — in his late-career comeback — took a turn for the mournful with "In the Ghetto." Elvis (and many cover singers after him) sings about Chicago's crowded black ghettos with an outsider's concern: "People, don't you understand / the child needs a helping hand / or he'll grow to be an angry young man some day." Almost half a century later, Busta Rhymes used the same song title to celebrate the ghetto as a source of identity. Busta Rhymes doesn't ignore the painful effects of intergenerational poverty. The ghetto is where "crackhead chicks still smoke with babies in they belly." But he's not calling for help or claiming that all ghetto-dwellers are miserable. The ghetto is also "where you find beautiful women and rugrats / and some of the most powerful people, I love that!" Ghetto Not-So-Fabulous?

Ghettos were always defined by lack of choice — they were places inhabitants were forced to live, whether by anti-Semitic governments, discriminating neighbors or racist practices like redlining. Sociologist Mario Small argues that these limits have largely been lifted, such that researchers should no longer consider "ghetto" a useful word for urban slums. And indeed, use of the word "ghetto" in print has been declining since the early '70s . But slang variants have been rising in popularity since before the turn of the millennium. And a quick glance at social media suggests they're not going away; on a recent weekday, twitter users referenced "ghetto" almost 20 times per minute. Segregation In America: 'Dragging On And On' Many commentators have objected to these terms. Using ghetto as an insult is, as our own Karen Grigsby Bates has pointed out , inherently classist. Ta-Nehisi Coates once wrote that "ghetto, in its most unironic usage, is a word for people you don't know. It's a word that allows you to erase individuals and create boxes." And arguments that the terms are race-neutral are, well, unconvincing.

This current use of "ghetto" is also curiously mismatched to the history of ghettos. Venice's ghettos were home to prosperous merchants. Warsaw's ghettos housed resistance fighters. Harlem was a ghetto when it hosted a transformative literary and cultural movement. Chicago's Bronzeville was home to the black professional class — ghettos, by removing citizens' freedom to live where they want, force schoolteachers next to drug dealers, working families next to whorehouses. But slang references to "ghetto culture" don't refer to any of those legacies, or to the perseverance it takes to survive under such limitations. ("You surviving in the ghetto," raps Busta Rhymes, "you can make it anywhere.") Instead, they reduce ghetto life to poverty and poor behavior. Acting ghetto. Being ghetto. Dressing ghetto. Ghetto, in slang usage, has entirely lost the sense of forced segregation — the meaning it held for centuries. In a rapid about-face, it's become an indictment of individual choices. Ghetto | Definition of Ghetto by Merriam-Webster Examples of ghetto in a sentence He grew up in the ghetto. Did You Know?

The etymology of Italian ghetto was formerly the subject of much speculation, but today there is little doubt that the word comes from the Italian dialect form ghèto, meaning “foundry.” A foundry for cannons was once located on an island that forms part of Venice, where in 1516 the Venetians restricted Jewish residence. The word ghèto became the name for the area and was borrowed into standard Italian as ghetto, with the meaning of “section of a city where Jews are forced to live.” From there it passed into most other European languages. Since the late 19th century, the meaning of ghetto has been extended to crowded urban districts where other ethnic or racial groups have been confined by poverty or prejudice. Origin and Etymology of ghetto Italian, from Venetian dialect ghèto island where Jews were forced to live, literally, foundry (located on the island), from ghetàr to cast, from Latin jactare to throw — more at jet First Known Use: 1611 Where did the word Ghetto come from ? Education & Reference Questions and Answers Web Where did the word Ghetto come from ? Question:What language did the word Ghetto originate from ?

Answers: plural ghettos also ghettoes Etymology: Italian, from Venetian dialect ghèto island where Jews were forced to live, literally, foundry (located on the island), from ghetàr to cast, from Latin jactare to throw — more at jet Date: 1611 1: a quarter of a city in which Jews were formerly required to live2: a quarter of a city in which members of a minority group live especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure3 a: an isolated group <a geriatric ghetto> b: a situation that resembles a ghetto especially in conferring inferior status or limiting opportunity <the pink-collar ghetto> Africa. It means uh...uh- bad land! yes uh, bad land! Harlem probably! But here is where it originated: The term originated in Venice and became associated with the Jews in the 16th century. This article contents is post by this website user, EduQnA.com doesn't promise its accuracy. More Questions & Answers... History of the Ghetto History of the Ghetto Ghetto The word ghetto means slag, from the Latin word gettare, to pour or to cast.

This Italian word was first used by the Venetians, who forced Jews to live behind walls in the most miserable part of the city near an iron foundry. The Ghetto in Venice was of course not the first nor the last European Jewish ghetto. As early as 1179, the third ï¿½Lateran Councilï¿½ of the Catholic church decided that Christians should not live together with Jews (Lateran refers to SEXTUS LATERANUS, a Roman Consul who, long before Christianity, owned the Lateran palace where the council or meeting was held). This led to the segregation of Jews in most European communities. The areas in which Jews were allowed to live were not at first called Ghettos because that Italian name did not enter the European languages until the Venetians introduced it in the 16th century. In Germany, Jews were confined to a few streets called Judengasse or Jew alley. If you visit the town of Rothenburg in southern Germany today you can still see the street sign ï¿½Judengasseï¿½ there. Rothenburg maintains its medieval appearance for the sake of attracting tourists.

Although many European communities already provided for Jewish enclaves, this was not enough for the citizens of Venice, who forced Jews to live on one of the islands which constitute Venice to this day. In 1516 the Jewish area was walled in. Only two gates allowed Jews to leave after sunrise and return before dark. From sunset to morning the doors were locked. Jews were also forced to wear only black clothes such as may still be seen among some of our Torah true brethren. In the Middle Ages, all Europeans were subject to the so-called sumptuary laws (sumptus is Latin for expense), requiring different social classes and occupations to wear clothes which identified them. Hence the nobility wore colorful and attractive clothes and peasants wore uniformly ugly clothes. Jews were the bottom of the hierarchy (holy rule) and therefore had to wear only black. In 1555 Pope Paul IV confined the Jews of Rome to a ghetto with only one entrance and one exit. This example was followed all over Europe as Jews were compelled to stay in segregated and enclosed areas. These areas were never expanded, so that the natural increase in the Jewish population created a filthy slum.

Jewish housing had to built upward into buildings several stories high as they could not grow normally. These ghettos remained in effect until the French Revolution of 1789 led to the abolition of the Venice ghetto in 1797, the Frankfurt ghetto in 1811 and finally the Roman ghetto in 1848. Nevertheless, Jews were usually confined to the areas in which the ghettos had once existed. Thereafter, any areas largely inhabited by minority groups has been called a ghetto. In 1939, the Germans once more instituted the ghetto, first in Germany and then in all of occupied Europe. Once Poland had been invaded by the German armies the Polish Jews were forced into ghettos in Warsaw, Lublin, Lodz and other cities. The German Jews were deported to those ghettos before being gassed together with the Eastern European Jews. The Nazi ghettos were far worse than the medieval ghettos had been. In Warsaw there were over nine people per room and in other towns 12-30 people were packed into a room. Jews were starved in these ghettos, eating only 250 calories a day.

Poles were allowed to eat 669 calories a day, Germans ate 2,613 calories a day. Since the ghettos had no sanitation and little water, disease killed thousands of Jews in these ghettos. In the end, the Jews who were still alive in 1942 were transported from these ghettos to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Sobibor and Treblinka. The Jews of Warsaw did revolt but in the end all such uprisings failed. In sum, the Nazis established 18 ghettos. After the Second World War the Poles continued the practice of isolating the few Jews who survived the Nazi horrors and then murdered these few Jews who wanted to return to their erstwhile homes. Today, Poland is ï¿½Judenreinï¿½ - ï¿½cleansed of Jewsï¿½ - even as Polish radio stations continue to broadcast anti-Jewish hate at an audience which has never seen a Jew. Shalom uï¿½vracha. Ghetto | Define Ghetto at Dictionary.com ghetto noun, plural ghettos, ghettoes. 1.

a section of a city, especially a thickly populated slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority group, often as a result of social or economic restrictions, pressures, or hardships. 2. (formerly, in most European countries) a section of a city in which all Jews were required to live. 3. a section predominantly inhabited by Jews. 4. any mode of living, working, etc., that results from stereotyping or biased treatment: job ghettos for women; ghettos for the elderly. adjective pertaining to or characteristic of life in a ghetto or the people who live there: ghetto culture. 6. Slang: Often Disparaging and Offensive. noting something that is considered to be unrefined, low-class, cheap, or inferior: Her furniture is so ghetto! Origin of ghetto Expand 1605-1615 1605-15; < Italian, orig.

the name of an island near Venice where Jews were forced to reside in the 16th century < Venetian, literally, foundry for artillery (giving the island its name), noun derivative of ghettare to throw < Vulgar Latin *jectāre; see jet 1 Dictionary.com Unabridged Examples from the Web for ghetto Expand British Dictionary definitions for ghetto Expand noun (pl) -tos, -toes 1. (sociol) a densely populated slum area of a city inhabited by a socially and economically deprived minority 2. an area in a European city in which Jews were formerly required to live 3. a group or class of people that is segregated in some way Word Origin C17: from Italian, perhaps shortened from borghetto, diminutive of borgo settlement outside a walled city; or from the Venetian ghetto the medieval iron-founding district, largely inhabited by Jews Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd.

1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 Word Origin and History for ghetto Expand n. 1610s, "part of a city to which Jews were restricted," especially in Italy, from Italian ghetto "part of a city to which Jews are restricted," various theories of its origin include: Yiddish get "deed of separation;" special use of Venetian getto "foundry" (there was one near the site of that city's ghetto in 1516); a clipped word from Egitto "Egypt," from Latin Aegyptus (presumably in memory of the exile); or Italian borghetto "small section of a town" (diminutive of borgo, of Germanic origin, see borough ). Extended by 1899 to crowded urban quarters of other minority groups (especially blacks in U.S. cities). As an adjective by 1903 (modern slang usage from 1999).

Ghetto-blaster "large, portable stereo" is from 1982. Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper Online Etymology Dictionary ghetto (n.) 1610s, "part of a city in which Jews are compelled to live," especially in Italy, from Italian ghetto "part of a city to which Jews are restricted," of unknown origin. The various theories trace it to: Yiddish get "deed of separation;" a special use of Venetian getto "foundry" (there was one near the site of that city's ghetto in 1516); a clipped form of Egitto "Egypt," from Latin Aegyptus (presumably in memory of the exile); or Italian borghetto "small section of a town" (diminutive of borgo, which is of Germanic origin; see borough ). Extended by 1899 to crowded urban quarters of other minority groups (especially blacks in U.S. cities). As an adjective by 1903 (modern slang usage from 1999). Ghetto-blaster "large, portable stereo cassette-player" is from 1982.

Borrowed Words Close this window Loanwords are words adopted by the speakers of one language from a different language (the source language). A loanword can also be called a borrowing. The abstract noun borrowing refers to the process of speakers adopting words from a source language into their native language. "Loan" and "borrowing" are of course metaphors, because there is no literal lending process. There is no transfer from one language to another, and no "returning" words to the source language. The words simply come to be used by a speech community that speaks a different language from the one these words originated in. Borrowing is a consequence of cultural contact between two language communities. Borrowing of words can go in both directions between the two languages in contact, but often there is an asymmetry, such that more words go from one side to the other. In this case the source language community has some advantage of power, prestige and/or wealth that makes the objects and ideas it brings desirable and useful to the borrowing language community. For example, the Germanic tribes in the first few centuries A.D. adopted numerous loanwords from Latin as they adopted new products via trade with the Romans.

Few Germanic words, on the other hand, passed into Latin. The actual process of borrowing is complex and involves many usage events (i.e. instances of use of the new word). Generally, some speakers of the borrowing language know the source language too, or at least enough of it to utilize the relevant word. They (often consciously) adopt the new word when speaking the borrowing language, because it most exactly fits the idea they are trying to express. If they are bilingual in the source language, which is often the case, they might pronounce the words the same or similar to the way they are pronounced in the source language. For example, English speakers adopted the word garage from French, at first with a pronunciation nearer to the French pronunciation than is now usually found. Presumably the very first speakers who used the word in English knew at least some French and heard the word used by French speakers, in a French-speaking context. Those who first use the new word might use it at first only with speakers of the source language who know the word, but at some point they come to use the word with those to whom the word was not previously known. To these speakers the word may sound 'foreign'.

At this stage, when most speakers do not know the word and if they hear it think it is from another language, the word can be called a foreign word. There are many foreign words and phrases used in English such as bon vivant (French), mutatis mutandis (Latin), and Fahrvergnuegen (German). However, in time more speakers can become familiar with a new foreign word or expression. The community of users of this word can grow to the point where even people who know little or nothing of the source language understand, and even use, the novel word themselves. The new word becomes conventionalized: part of the conventional ways of speaking in the borrowing language. At this point we call it a borrowing or loanword. (It should be noted that not all foreign words do become loanwords; if they fall out of use before they become widespread, they do not reach the loanword stage.) Conventionalization is a gradual process in which a word progressively permeates a larger and larger speech community, becoming part of ever more people's linguistic repetoire.

As part of its becoming more familiar to more people, a newly borrowed word gradually adopts sound and other characteristics of the borrowing language as speakers who do not know the source language accommodate it to their own linguistic systems. In time, people in the borrowing community do not perceive the word as a loanword at all. Generally, the longer a borrowed word has been in the language, and the more frequently it is used, the more it resembles the native words of the language. English has gone through many periods in which large numbers of words from a particular language were borrowed. These periods coincide with times of major cultural contact between English speakers and those speaking other languages. The waves of borrowing during periods of especially strong cultural contacts are not sharply delimited, and can overlap. For example, the Norse influence on English began already in the 8th century A.D. and continued strongly well after the Norman Conquest brought a large influx of Norman French to the language. It is part of the cultural history of English speakers that they have always adopted loanwords from the languages of whatever cultures they have come in contact with.

There have been few periods when borrowing became unfashionable, and there has never been a national academy in Britain, the U.S., or other English-speaking countries to attempt to restrict new loanwords, as there has been in many continental European countries. The following list is a small sampling of the loanwords that came into English in different periods and from different languages. I. Germanic period Latin The forms given in this section are the Old English ones. The original Latin source word is given in parentheses where significantly different. Some Latin words were themselves originally borrowed from Greek. It can be deduced that these borrowings date from the time before the Angles and Saxons left the continent for England, because of very similar forms found in the other old Germanic languages (Old High German, Old Saxon, etc.). The source words are generally attested in Latin texts, in the large body of Latin writings that were preserved through the ages. ancor (few ordinary words, but thousands of place and river names: London, Carlisle, Devon, Dover, Cornwall, Thames, Avon...) III.

Middle English Period (1100-1500) Scandinavian Most of these first appeared in the written language in Middle English; but many were no doubt borrowed earlier, during the period of the Danelaw (9th-10th centuries).

anger, blight, by-law, cake, call, clumsy, doze, egg, fellow, gear, get, give, hale, hit, husband, kick, kill, kilt, kindle, law, low, lump, rag, raise, root, scathe, scorch, score, scowl, scrape, scrub, seat, skill, skin, skirt, sky, sly, take, they, them, their, thrall, thrust, ugly, want, window, wing Place name suffixes: -by, -thorpe, -gate French Law and governmentattorney, bailiff, chancellor, chattel, country, court, crime, defendent, evidence, government, jail, judge, jury, larceny, noble, parliament, plaintiff, plea, prison, revenue, state, tax, verdict Churchabbot, chaplain, chapter, clergy, friar, prayer, preach, priest, religion, sacrament, saint, sermon Nobilitybaron, baroness; count, countess; duke, duchess; marquis, marquess; prince, princess; viscount, viscountess; noble, royal (contrast native words: king,

 queen, earl, lord, lady, knight, kingly, queenly) Militaryarmy, artillery, battle, captain, company, corporal, defense,enemy,marine, navy, sergeant, soldier, volunteer Cookingbeef, boil, broil, butcher, dine, fry, mutton, pork, poultry, roast, salmon, stew, veal Culture and luxury goodsart, bracelet, claret, clarinet, dance, diamond, fashion, fur, jewel, oboe, painting, pendant, satin, ruby, sculpture Otheradventure, change, charge, chart, courage, devout, dignity, enamor, feign, fruit, letter, literature, magic, male, female, mirror, pilgrimage, proud, question, regard, special Also Middle English French loans: a huge number of words in age, -ance/-ence, -ant/-ent, -ity, -ment, -tion, con-, de-, and pre- .

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether a given word came from French or whether it was taken straight from Latin. Words for which this difficulty occurs are those in which there were no special sound and/or spelling changes of the sort that distinguished French from Latin IV. Early Modern English Period (1500-1650) The effects of the renaissance begin to be seriously felt in England. We see the beginnings of a huge influx of Latin and Greek words, many of them learned words imported by scholars well versed in those languages. But many are borrowings from other languages, as words from European high culture begin to make their presence felt and the first words come in from the earliest period of colonial expansion.

Latin agile, abdomen, anatomy, area, capsule, compensate, dexterity, discus, disc/disk, excavate, expensive, fictitious, gradual, habitual, insane, janitor, meditate, notorious, orbit, peninsula, physician, superintendent, ultimate, vindicate Greek (many of these via Latin) anonymous, atmosphere, autograph, catastrophe, climax, comedy, critic, data, ectasy, history, ostracize, parasite, pneumonia, skeleton, tonic, tragedy Greek bound morphemes: -ism, -ize Arabic via Spanishalcove, algebra, zenith, algorithm, almanac, azimuth, alchemy, admiral via other Romance languagesamber, cipher, orange, saffron, sugar, zero, coffee V. Modern English (1650-present) Period of major colonial expansion, industrial/technological revolution, and American immigration. Words from European languages French French continues to be the largest single source of new words outside of very specialized vocabulary domains (scientific/technical vocabulary, still dominated by classical borrowings).

High cultureballet, bouillabaise, cabernet, cachet, chaise longue, champagne, chic, cognac, corsage, faux pas, nom de plume, quiche, rouge, roulet, sachet, salon, saloon, sang froid, savoir faire War and Militarybastion, brigade, battalion, cavalry, grenade, infantry, pallisade, rebuff, bayonet Otherbigot, chassis, clique, denim, garage, grotesque, jean(s), niche, shock French Canadianchowder Louisiana French (Cajun)jambalaya Spanish armada, adobe, alligator, alpaca, armadillo, barricade, bravado, cannibal, canyon, coyote, desperado, embargo, enchilada, guitar, marijuana, mesa, mosquito, mustang, ranch, taco, tornado, tortilla, vigilante Italian alto, arsenal, balcony, broccoli, cameo, casino, cupola, duo, fresco, fugue, gazette (via French), ghetto, gondola, grotto, macaroni, madrigal, motto, piano, opera, pantaloons, prima donna

, regatta, sequin, soprano, opera, stanza, stucco, studio, tempo, torso, umbrella, viola, violin from Italian American immigrantscappuccino, espresso, linguini, mafioso, pasta, pizza, ravioli, spaghetti, spumante, zabaglione, zucchini Dutch, Flemish Shipping, naval termsavast, boom, bow, bowsprit, buoy, commodore, cruise, dock, freight, keel, keelhaul, leak, pump, reef, scoop, scour, skipper, sloop, smuggle, splice, tackle, yawl, yacht Cloth industrybale, cambric, duck (fabric), fuller's earth, mart, nap (of cloth), selvage, spool, stripe Arteasel, etching, landscape, sketch Warbeleaguer, holster, freebooter, furlough, onslaught Food and drinkbooze, brandy(wine), coleslaw, cookie, cranberry, crullers, gin, hops, stockfish, waffle Otherbugger (orig.

French), crap, curl, dollar, scum, split (orig. nautical term), uproar German bum, dunk, feldspar, quartz, hex, lager, knackwurst, liverwurst, loafer, noodle, poodle, dachshund, pretzel, pinochle, pumpernickel, sauerkraut, schnitzel, zwieback, (beer)stein, lederhosen, dirndl 20th century German loanwordsblitzkrieg, zeppelin, strafe, U-boat, delicatessen, hamburger, frankfurter, wiener, hausfrau, kindergarten, Oktoberfest, schuss, wunderkind, bundt (cake), spritz (cookies), (apple) strudel Yiddish (most are 20th century borrowings) bagel, Chanukkah (Hanukkah), chutzpah, dreidel, kibbitzer, kosher, lox, pastrami (orig.

from Romanian), schlep, spiel, schlepp, schlemiel, schlimazel, gefilte fish, goy, klutz, knish, matzoh, oy vey, schmuck, schnook, Scandinavian fjord, maelstrom, ombudsman, ski, slalom, smorgasbord Russian apparatchik, borscht, czar/tsar, glasnost, icon, perestroika, vodka Words from other parts of the world Sanskrit avatar, karma, mahatma, swastika, yoga Hindi bandanna, bangle, bungalow, chintz, cot, cummerbund, dungaree, juggernaut, jungle, loot, maharaja, nabob, pajamas, punch (the drink), shampoo, thug, kedgeree, jamboree Dravidian check, checkmate, chess Arabic bedouin, emir, jakir, gazelle, giraffe, harem, hashish, lute, minaret, mosque, myrrh, salaam, sirocco, sultan, vizier, bazaar, caravan African languages banana (via Portuguese), banjo, boogie-woogie, ch

igger, goober, gorilla, gumbo, jazz, jitterbug, jitters, juke(box), voodoo, yam, zebra, zombie American Indian languages avocado, cacao, cannibal, canoe, chipmunk, chocolate, chili, hammock, hominy, hurricane, maize, moccasin, moose, papoose, pecan, possum, potato, skunk, squaw, succotash, squash, tamale (via Spanish), teepee, terrapin, tobacco, toboggan, tomahawk, tomato, wigwam, woodchuck (plus thousands of place names, including Ottawa, Toronto, Saskatchewan and the names of more than half the states of the U.S., including Michigan, Texas, Nebraska, Illinois) Chinese chop suey, chow mein, dim sum, ketchup, tea, ginseng, kowtow, litchee Japanese geisha, hara kiri, judo, jujitsu, kamikaze, karaoke, kimono, samurai, soy, sumo, sushi, tsunami Pacific Islands bamboo, gingham, rattan, taboo, tattoo, ukulele, boondocks Australia Jewish Word | Ghetto -

 Moment Magazine Jewish Word | Ghetto Venice, Harlem and Beyond There are few words that so acutely symbolize discrimination as “ghetto.” It was coined in Venice in 1516 to refer to a segregated, enclosed area of a city where Jews were forced to live.

It then came to signify any place where Jews were concentrated and from there an urban minority slum perpetuated by social and economic reasons rather than legal fiat. In between, the Nazis adopted the term to denote their horrific provisional way stations on the road to extermination. Ghetto’s etymology is uncertain, according to The Oxford English Dictionary. Some scholars claim that it comes from the Italian word gheto or ghet, slag or waste in Venetian dialect. Some argue it originates from gettare, meaning pouring or casting metal, and refers to a foundry where slag was stored on the Venetian island where the first ghetto was located. Other popular theories are that the word derives from the word borghetto (borgo means borough), or from the Hebrew get, a deed of divorce or separation. In a 2009 column for The Oxford Etymologist entitled “Why Don’t We Know the Origin of the Word Ghetto?” linguist Anatoly Liberman speculates that the word might even come from the Yiddish word ghectus, a Latinized form of gehektes or enclosed.

Liberman’s origin of choice, however, is the English word jetty (from the Latin jactare), which means a narrow road of ancient houses in parts of England. The first known written mention of the word ghetto was uncovered by Benjamin C.E. Ravid, professor of Jewish history at Brandeis University, in a 1523 Hebrew diary of Venetian David Ha-Reuveni, who refers to “the ghetto, the place of the Jews.” The earliest known written mention in English is in a 1611 travelogue, Coryat’s Crudities, which reads “a place where the whole fraternity of the Jews dwelleth together, which is called the ghetto.” Regardless of its origin, ghettos were a significant part of medieval Jewish life. But as Ravid points out, “All ghettos were Jewish quarters, but not all Jewish quarters were ghettos.” Jews sometimes voluntarily agreed to live in separate sectors, but often it was not their choice.

Fearing that Christians’ faith would be weakened by contact with Jews, the Lateran Councils of 1179 and 1215 first called for segregating the Jews, and what was in effect a ghetto was set aside as early as 1262 in Prague. By the mid-15th century, this practice became formalized as cities started to compel Jews to move into a separate quarter, usually in the poorest section of town: Frankfurt’s infamous Judengasse, for example, was established in 1460 by a city ordinance. The term ghetto wasn’t actually used until the Venetians moved Jews, primarily Ashkenazi moneylenders, into the Ghetto Nuovo (the new ghetto), surrounded by walls with two gates kept locked from sunset to sunrise. To add living space to the crowded quarters, floors were added to existing buildings resulting in the first “skyscrapers.” Later, in 1541, when Sephardic Jewish merchants from the Ottoman Empire moved to Venice, they were assigned to an area called Ghetto Vecchio (the old ghetto), connected to the first by a wooden footbridge over the canal.

Rome’s ghetto was formed in 1555 by decree of Pope Paul IV, confining Jews to a single street with only one entrance and exit on the left bank of the Tiber River, an area subject to flooding and disease. In subsequent decades, Jewish ghettos were created in Verona, Padua and other Tuscan cities. In 1797, when Napoleon’s army reached Venice, a municipal council took over the government, soon ending the restrictions on the Jews. In Rome, King Victor Emmanuel formally abolished the Roman ghetto in 1870, although its walls were not destroyed until 1885. The original Venetian ghetto was “a liberal solution to how Western Christianity usually treated its Jews, which was kick them out or kill them,” says David Rosenberg-Wohl, curator of a 2008 exhibition “Il Ghetto: Forging Italian Jewish Identities 1516-1870” at the Museo Italo-Americano in San Francisco. “The ghetto is not so much a prison as the idea of containment,” he adds. Rosenberg-Wohl also points out that Venetian Jews were required to wear yellow badges or hats.

The Nazis were to borrow this method of identification many centuries later. The Venetian ghetto provided the Jews a place within society so that they were not expelled as they were in England, France, Spain and Portugal, says Ravid. “It was residential control with some restrictions imposed, but Venetians did not intend to isolate the Jews all the time,” he says. “They wanted to prevent mingling with Christians, especially the women, at dark. Jews were free to go outside during the day, and Christians came into the ghetto to borrow money from Jewish moneylenders.” One byproduct of this “open ghetto” policy was an intensification of Jewish culture and solidarity, which allowed Jews to develop their own scholarly and religious resources, according to David Ruderman, professor of Jewish history at the University of Pennsylvania. They also had their own food, retail shops, schools and places of worship. Venice’s medieval ghetto had five synagogues including German, Italian, Spanish-Portuguese and Levantine Sephardi ones. Ghettos had largely disappeared in Europe by the middle of the 19th century when the word crossed the Atlantic. Jewish authors borrowed the word to refer to the New World’s crowded Jewish neighborhoods.

It made appearances in novels such as Israel Zangwill’s 1892 Children of the Ghetto and Abraham Cahan’s 1896 Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto. A book, The Ghetto, about the Jews of Chicago’s West Side by sociologist Louis Wirth was published in 1928. Soon after, Germany’s new Nazi party reached back into the past to resurrect its own, more venomous version of ghettos. During World War II, Jews in Warsaw and hundreds of other cities and towns in Eastern Europe were pushed into crowded, miserable isolated quarters, to wear badges or armbands and to perform forced labor for the Germans. These ghettos, were, as Ravid writes, not residential areas but “a temporary stage on the planned road to total liquidation.” Back in the United States, the definition of the word took a different direction.

African Americans moved into the densely populated inner-city neighborhoods once populated by Jews and became trapped there by a combination of white hostility and housing and employment restrictions, according to the 1999 study, The Rise and Decline of the American Ghetto by David Cutler, Edward Glaeser and Jacob Vigdor. This “covert segregation” prevented African Americans from access to opportunities, says OnTay Johnson, a filmmaker in Los Angeles, who is working on a documentary, OMG, That’s So Ghetto, about the use of the word both as a noun and an adjective. Ghetto culture has its proponents and detractors. To some African Americans, it represents a vibrant feeling of authenticity and pride. Langston Hughes celebrated this in his 1931 poem Negro Ghetto, and today’s hip-hop generation has made the word a symbol of defiance. But the poverty of ghetto life has come with a steep price, says Johnson. “The lack of education and parental guidance have led to a mindset heavily ingrained in young people in inner city ghettos who can’t think outside their lifestyle,” says Johnson, who hopes his film will challenge stereotypes and inspire people to change their neighborhoods and improve their lives.

Meanwhile, the significance of the word ghetto is fading from collective memory. Europe’s old ghettos are now gentrified tourist attractions, lined with trendy restaurants. And as Johnson says, today’s ghetto residents “have no clue about the origins or insinuations behind the word.” 2013-05-20

Question: From which language does the word 'ghetto' originate?
Answer: ITALIAN